Credit cards are a huge business and a large part of the world economy. Credit cards can be basically broken down into three categories: national/universal cards such as MasterCard™ and Visa™; travel and entertainment cards such as American Express™ and Diners Club™; and local merchant/house cards that each store separately issues for their stores (such as Office Depot™, Sears™, Macy's™) or the brands in their store chain, for example, the Gap™ card is valid for all their branded stores including Old Navy™, Gap™, and Banana Republic™ Stores, restaurants, and other establishments also issue affiliate/membership/reward cards for customers to use in their stores. Examples of these cards would be the Blockbuster membership card used when customers rent movies, or the frequent purchase card used by establishments like TGI Fridays™, Barnes and Noble™, or Costco™.
Despite credit risk and credit card fraud which are large factors in the industry, stores are very motivated to issue their own credit cards because of the high profit associated with an individual merchant/house credit card. In many cases, for example, a credit card issuer will charge upwards of 16% interest on unpaid balances, while the merchants cost of extending credit is far below this number. In fact stores and store employees are extremely motivated to sign up customers to their own brands of credit cards, and acquisition costs of getting a credit card customer can run hundreds of dollars.
Customers for individual stores are frequently incentived by the merchants to sign up for credit cards with special promotions and prizes. Frequently, customers will receive a one-time discount on their purchases if they will sign up for the account. Millions of customers do sign up each year in the United States to receive individual merchant credit cards.
One of the main reasons customers do not sign up for individual store accounts, e.g., a merchant/house accounts, is that they do not wish to carry an individual credit card for each and every store. It is far easier to just keep one or two national credit cards that can be used at hundreds of merchants, then many merchant/house cards that must be carried. In some cases, if a customer does not have his store card, a store will allow the customer to show a driver's license or other identification and they will look up the customer's account number; but in many cases this takes a great deal of time during check-out, if it can be done at all.
Another reason that customers will not sign up for individual store accounts is that the sign up and approval process takes time. While the sign up and approval for most merchants is very automated, it is still a cumbersome and time consuming process that many people are not prepared to go through particularly when the merchant is trying to get them to sign up on the spur of the moment during the check-out process.
Customers also routinely receive receipts for goods or services purchased usually at the time of purchase. These receipts are customarily in paper form. The receipts are extremely important for a number of reasons. For example, a receipt is usually (but not always) needed to return or replace the merchandise; a receipt is needed to verify and compare against the credit card charge bill to make sure that the credit card charges are accurate; the receipt is needed for income tax purposes; a receipt is needed for insurance purposes in the event of loss or damage to property; a receipt is needed to verify proof of purchase for a manufacturer rebate; a receipt is needed in many cases for manufacturer warranty claims; etc.
However, the problem with paper receipts is that many times they are lost or discarded by the purchaser. Studies have shown that only a minority of individuals retain receipts for all merchandise purchased and even fewer have receipts for older merchandise.
Therefore, a need exists for techniques to facilitate providing customers with receipts for goods or services purchased that can be accessible by the customer at a time after the point of sale. A further need exists for techniques to enable a merchant to provide to a customer additional purchase/upgrade opportunities for the merchandise or services that they have purchased.